"FROM BEYOND THE GRAVE" by the Crimson Kid [Category: Period]

(All rights reserved. This story's setting is a human-inhabited colony
planet during the mid-25th century.) 

  Puzzlement was the first emotion, other than sorrowful despair, that
Petrov had felt for ten days. 
  Wearing his jet-black mourning outfit, the powerfully-built genius
awaited the delivery of his wife's posthumously-willed gift. 

  He was a 'gen-en,' a genetically-enhanced individual, significantly
stronger, faster and more intelligent than normal humans, in his prime
at age 54 with his 200-year lifespan. 
  Ironically, Petrov mused, he'd fallen deeply in love with Jasmine, a
woman whose frail, semi-invalided body had barely sustained her
dazzling intelligence.
  Though limited by her corporeal weakness, his spouse had won the
galaxy-wide Rhinehard Prize twice--for both robotics and cybernetics.

  He frowned, recalling how his darling had driven herself unmercifully
for five months, insisting on completing her scientific "Magnum Opus"
before her physically-feeble form collapsed. Jasmine would have lived
longer if she'd 'rested on her laurels,' but she'd refused to pace
herself, telling him to trust her.
  Petrov remembered finding her slumped over her multicomp workstation,
body cold, brainwave-transmitting cables attached to her forehead.
Whatever she'd been attempting had been disastrously terminated. 

  His expected bequeathal arrived, tube-transported from its security
vault, looking like a high-tech coffin. Attached to it was a package
containing a flexiplast punishment paddle, a viciously-stinging
disciplinary implement, inscripted with "MAKING UP FOR LOST TIME." 
  Jasmine hadn't spanked him for months, but had promised to "make up
for lost time" after completing her final project. Spanking had been
their favorite form of erotic play, although she'd lacked the strength
and stamina to seriously sting him as her implements had cracked across
his naked buttocks. 
 
  Sobbing, he palmed the DNA-screening panel on the coffin-object; it's
top slid open, exposing the figure beneath. 
  Petrov gasped, regarding the scantily-clad body of a young woman with
the facial features of Jasmine--but far too tall and muscularly toned
to be his wife. 
 
  The body sat up, eyes blinking open, then spoke clinically. 
  "It worked. No reason that it wouldn't..." 
  "What...??" Petrov reeled; the woman spang out to steady him. 
  "Easy, darling," she soothed. 
  "You...?" 

  A humanform android containing your wife's total personality and
memory engrams--intellect and emotions." She smiled. "I'm Jasmine,
sweetheart, in a body even better than yours--my 'Magnum Opus'." 
  He gulped. "Then...you..."
  "Transmitted my complete consciousness into this android form,
killing my biological body," Jasmine noted. "It would've died anyway
soon, so I tried this alternative."

  Petrov swallowed. "Oh, Jasmine honey..." 
  She took the paddle from his hand. 
  "Those mourning clothes are now inappropriate, young man, so strip to
the buff," she instructed. "Let's make up for lost time. That was
extremely disobedient of you, failing to trust me." 

  "Yes, ma'am." He started undressing.
  Jasmine slapped the flexiplast striking surface against her
palm--Smack!! 
  "What happens to the bare behinds of naughty boys?" 
  "They get...spanked...hard...ma'am," Petrov mumbled. 
  
  The awesome woman grinned. "In this body, I can finally make you bawl
like a baby...." 
  {THE END}